The exact dates of the 1933 lunar year
The Water Rooster year ran from January 26, 1933 to February 13, 1934. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap fifth month was inserted: 1933 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 1933 new year fell 11 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1932 one, January 26, 1933 against February 6, 1932. Why the 1933 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Water Rooster pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1933 is Gui and the branch is the Rooster, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1933 that branch is taken to mean someone exact and outspoken, noticing detail and reporting it. Water, the element attached to 1933, adds adaptability, depth and a way of getting around obstacles rather than through.
1933 is a yin year, the inward half of the Water pair: 1932 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1933 is described as the rooster temperament working through adaptability.
Born in January or early February 1933
From 1 January 1933 to January 25, 1933 the animal in force was still the Monkey, not the Rooster — 25 days of 1933 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1933 is a Monkey.
The first Rooster of 1933 is anyone born on January 26, 1933 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 13, 1934. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 26, 1933 is at the early end.
Where 1933 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1933 is position 10 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Gui stem against the Rooster branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Water Rooster year was 1873 and the next is 1993.
Someone born in 1873 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1933, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1933 meets the pairing again in 1993.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rooster of 1933 is grouped with the Ox and the Snake, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1929 and 1937. Its opposition is the Rabbit, six years on from 1933 in 1939.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1933 was measured to produce them; 1933 stands four years from 1929 and six from 1939, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1933
Because the 1933 lunar year opened on January 26, 1933, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 13, 1934, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1933 stays the Rooster.
Handbooks equate the Rooster of 1933 with Virgo, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1933 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1933 Water Rooster as a year-long version of Virgo flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1933 Chinese new year start?
January 26, 1933, and the year ran on to February 13, 1934 — 384 days.
What animal is 1933?
The Rooster, in its Water form, from January 26, 1933 onward; a birth earlier in 1933 is a Monkey.
Was 1933 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap fifth month made 1933 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 1933 — which animal am I?
The Monkey, unless you were born on January 26, 1933 or later, which is when the 1933 year began.